Hard Mode and Meta Progression, Tougher Battles For Hard Earned Rewards…With a Twist.
Independent developer Room C Games in co-production with Croteam and in partnership with indie publisher Versus Evil today announced the latest major update for their rogue-lite RPG game The Hand of Merlin, currently in early access for PC via Steam, Epic Game Store, and GOG.
Titled ‘The End Times’, Update #4 implements an ultimate hard mode and more meta progression into The Hand of Merlin, players looking for a meatier challenge with their current guardians will be hard-pressed to find a mode that better tests their combat prowess. The Ultimate Hard mode where all run modifiers are set to max, players get to meet a special hard version of the final boss too.
Not only that but players will also be introduced to Dire Units, super-buffed versions of the abominations, these meaner and nastier foes come with higher HP, more armor, fewer cooldowns, and unique passive abilities, presenting an overall tougher challenge to overcome.
Meta Progression is also being added in this latest update, helping players grow stronger with each run, and as they gain more and more Essence, they’ll need a place to spend it, which is where The Hand of Merlins new Blessings and Curses system will come in. In Hard Mode, players can spend Essence in exchange for temporary benefits. Blessings are positive benefits, such as increasing the maximum mana level or earning larger gold rewards. However, players will also need to select Curses that produce negative effects on their runs, such as more Bandits or less gold, this balancing effectively gives players a more competitive challenge but without overpowering their new abilities.
Room C Games are also adding alternate maps as another feature to the new update. Every current map “concept” will have four different versions: Default, Default Corrupted, Alternate, and Alternate Corrupted.
